


The Festival of Lights (is NOT a celebration of Apollo)

by fandomnerd



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hanukkah, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomnerd/pseuds/fandomnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rachel Elizabeth Dare attempts to teach her atheist/neo-pagan/christian boyfriend and girlfriend about Hanukkah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Festival of Lights (is NOT a celebration of Apollo)

**Author's Note:**

> I firmly believe Rachel Dare is Jewish. There was a sore lack of fic about Rachel Dare being Jewish, or celebrating Hanukkah, and I got sick of all the Christmas fics everywhere all the time. So I decided to write Percy, Annabeth, and Rachel celebrating Hanukkah together. Except it turned into 1400 words of Percy, Annabeth, and Rachel being goofy teenage idiots instead, so I had to split it into two parts.

The frigid early December air stung Rachel’s cheeks, the wind chapping her lips. Or maybe that was from how she kept chewing on them. She readjusted her black beanie for the nth time, banged her fist against her palm, and nodded to herself. There was no reason to be nervous at all.

Except for maybe the fact that she was asking her two Christian slash neo-pagan (maybe? What did they even identify as, if they celebrated Christian holidays but worshipped the Greek gods? She’d have to ask at a later date) boyfriend and girlfriend to come to a Jewish holiday ritual. Or the fact that those friends didn’t know she was coming over or that she was even back in the city. But other than that, everything was peachy keen.

She rolled her eyes in disgust at her own nervousness, and then pressed the buzzer labeled “Blofis.” It took a second before Sally buzzed her up, but when she stepped off the elevator and approached the Blofis’ apartment, Sally wrapped Rachel in a giant hug. Sally Blofis hugs were the greatest hugs in the world, bar none.  “Rachel, dear! How have you been?”

Rachel grinned and pulled back, readjusting her beanie again. “Great, Mrs. Blofis. Peachy, even.”

Percy rescued her from starting to babble by coming up from behind his mother and wrapping her in a hug of truly ridiculous proportions—including a lift that she’s pretty sure he only did to remind her that he was just over half a foot taller than she was now. The jerk. When he put her down, she narrowed her eyes at him and rubbed her sides. “Jeez, Percy. Gentle with the mortal. If you bruised anything I’m totally within my rights as Oracle to noogie you into next century.”

Percy put his hands up, laughing, and backed away in faux-horror. “Oh no, anything but that.” Sally smiled and shook her head at them both, backing away silently into her study.

Rachel rolled her eyes at him and unbuttoned her peacoat, tossing it at his face just as Annabeth made her way out of Percy’s bedroom, tugging her hair into a ponytail. “Rachel! You’re back from school!” She shoved past Percy to give Rachel a hug, then pulled back, beaming at her. “Why are you home so early?”

 “The one benefit of private school: we have way longer breaks than the rest of you poor souls.” She smirked and grabbed Annabeth’s hand, dragging her in the direction of Percy’s bedroom. “Come on, let’s go further into the warmth, it’s cold as _balls_ outside.”

From behind her, Percy snorted. “Charming.”

“I’m sorry, was that sarcasm from the guy who takes his girlfriend out on dates to the sewer?”

Annabeth laughed long and hard at that, and she could _hear_ the pout in Percy’s voice when he mumbled, “It was just that one time…”

Annabeth and Rachel collapsed onto Percy’s bed while he shut his door.  Annabeth lay down on the bed, head resting on Percy’s pillow. Rachel was just getting comfy lying down next to her when Percy turned around and grinned. Annabeth saw it coming before Rachel did. “Oh no, nonono, Percy Jackson _don’t you dare—“_

Percy ignored her, jumping onto the bed and landing on the both of them. Annabeth and Rachel immediately started shoving him away; they were more successful than they might have been had he not been too busy laughing. “ _Gods_ , Jackson, how is it even possible for you to weigh that much, get _off_ , you dumbass.”

A couple more solid shoves and he was tumbling off of them and onto the floor. A pathetic little “Owww” drifted up, and then Percy’s head popped up over the edge, an exaggerated puppydog pout on his face that sent Rachel spiraling into giggles again. “You’re mean.”

Annabeth snickered, then grabbed the hair at the scruff of his neck and pulled him into a short kiss. “You’ll be fine,” she said, pulling away and leaning back on her elbows, sharing a sly grin with Rachel as Percy shook the dumbstruck look off of his face.

Percy seemed to let it go, climbing over the two of them on the bed, and lying across their bodies, his legs dangling off the edge of the bed by the knees. His head rested comfortably on Rachel’s stomach, and even now, a group of butterflies (a flock? A horde? She’d have to find out later) decided to go crazy in her stomach. She ran the fingers of one hand through Percy’s hair, and grabbed Annabeth’s with her other.

“Sooooo, not that I’m not _thrilled_ that you’re here, because you know you’re always welcome here, but is there a specific reason that you deigned to grace us with your presence today, your Oracle-ness?” Percy said cheekily, turning his head to grin sideways at Rachel. She rolled her eyes.

“Actually, there _is_ a specific reason I came over today.”

Annabeth turned on her side to face Rachel, cocking an eyebrow. “Something you couldn’t talk about over an Iris Message? It’s either incredibly important or something personal.”

Rachel untangled her fingers from Annabeth’s and flicked her nose lightly. Annabeth’s face scrunched up, eyes crossing for a second, then focusing on Rachel’s face in a ‘how could you _do_ this to me I thought you loved me’ look.

“It’s sort of personal, and it’s important to _me_ at any rate. Plus I don’t really know what the official godly stance is on other religions, so I didn’t wanna risk it.”

Annabeth’s eyebrows jumped. “Ooh, now I’m interested. Go on.”

Percy smirked at Annabeth and poked her stomach. “She _would_ if you would stop interrupting.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Mr. I Can’t Resist Talking Back To Anyone.”

Rachel sighed and put her hands over the both of their mouths. “If _both of you_ would be quiet for the thirty seconds or so it’ll take me to actually tell you, that would be _super_ ,” she said in a sarcastically chipper voice.

They each let out a muffled “Sorry,” so Rachel removed her hands and nodded.

“What I was _trying_ to say is that Hanukkah starts in like a week, and my dad and stepmom are going to be in the Bahamas because they hate the cold, and lighting the candles is no fun if you do it by yourself, so I was wondering if you guys maybe wanted to come over for the first night and light the candles with me?”

Percy and Annabeth sat up and looked at each other, then at Rachel. Rachel felt her pulse speed up. Oh no. No no. They were going to say no. What was she _thinking_ , of course they’d have other plans, of course they didn’t want to do some Jewish ritual with her, they didn’t know the first thing about Judaism, this was so stupid, she was so _stupid_. She started to sit up, to backtrack, to make a joke out of it and _get out of this situation as fast as you can, Dare, before you fuck everything up,_ but Percy seemed to catch onto what she was thinking before she could say a word.

Percy’s eyes widened and his words tripped all over each other on the way out of his mouth. “Of course we’ll go! Are you kidding? Sounds like a blast! Hanukkah is Jewish Christmas, right? Like, with eight days of presents? It always sounded so cool when I was a kid.”

Annabeth elbowed Percy’s ribs. “No, you insensitive moron, it’s not _Jewish Christmas_ , why are you even allowed to say words when all that comes out is kelp?” She turned to Rachel. “Like the seaweed-brained one said, we’d be glad to. But _not_ because it’s ‘Jewish Christmas.’ We’d be honored to learn more about your holidays and traditions.” Annabeth thought for a minute, then added, “And as for the gods’ policy on other religions, they seem to be okay with us hanging Christmas lights and the like in Camp, so I’m pretty sure they don’t actually have a problem with other religions.”

It took a moment for it to sink in, but when her brain finally recognized that they had said yes, her beaming grin was the brightest it had been in months.

Which clearly was too much for Annabeth and Percy to handle, as they immediately tackled her back to the bed, Annabeth peppering her face with kisses while Percy tickled her mercilessly.

It was _really_ nice to be home.


End file.
